Head restraints are known in the art for protecting a vehicle occupant from serious injury due to sudden movement of the vehicle. Head restraints generally are connected to and extend upwardly from a vehicle seat.
While head restraints are necessary to ensure the safety of vehicle occupants, at times, head restraints can present difficulties. More particularly, head restraints can obstruct a driver's view when looking rearward. Further, if a seat is folded forward to allow a passenger to enter the rear portion of the vehicle, the head restraint may contact the dashboard in front of the seat or any seat forward in the vehicle of the particular seat being folded, for example, if located in the second or third row, thus stopping the seat from fully folding down.
Improved head restraints have been developed that are rotatable relative to the seat between an upright position and a folded position. In the upright position, the head restraint is generally upright and serves as protection for a vehicle passenger. In the folded position, the head restraint is rotated relative to the vehicle seat to allow complete kinematic movement of the seatback, or to increase rearward visibility.
While such foldable head restraints offer advantages over non-foldable head restraints, there remains room for improvements to foldable head restraints to make them able to sustain higher loads during impact, easier to manufacture, simpler in design, and cheaper.